Monthly Review: August 2017

Posted on September 1, 2017

I publish a monthly review of habits, work, etc. You’ll be able to find them all here.

August was a kickass month. Once again, we were traveling a good bit. First, we headed to Chicago for some family celebrations. Then, I headed up into the mountains for the Ragnar Relay out here in Colorado. As a 11-person team, we covered close to 200 miles running from Copper Mountain to Snowmass. It’s one of my favorite events of the year!

Work-wise, I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to without feeling super stressed. Drink for Pink also started to ramp up. We’ve already raised over $2,000, and our main events haven’t even started yet! Really excited to see where we end up this year.

Before I forget, if you haven’t yet, definitely sign up for “If we grabbed coffee…” It’s a monthly newsletter where I send out my favorite links from around the web. I also give away one free book each month marked up with my favorite highlights and chapters.

Here’s a full recap of the books, habits, etc that I tackled in August along with what’s up next for September.

Goal Recap for August

✔️ Read three books.

I was able to finish six books again this month. A few of them (War of Art and Boomerang) were pretty short. I’m still really happy with my progress. I imagine I’ll be able to hit my Goodreads goal of 40 books in 2017.

✔️ Write two freelance pieces in August.

I wrote one piece for the The Muse, and I have another about ready to go for Todoist. I’ll share them on Twitter when they’re published. I was able to contribute two freelance pieces this month without feeling too overwhelmed so I’ll probably try to stick with one or two a month moving forward for various outlets.

Of all the books from August, Thinking Fast and Slow was my favorite. I love reading about behavioral psychology, and Kahneman is a master on the subject.

Up ahead, I’m going to read The 48 Laws of Power by Greene, 1776 by McCullough, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Goodwin, and Bringing Up Bébé by Druckerman. Starting to dip my toe into parenting books a bit! Some of these (48 Laws of Power and Team of Rivals) are relatively long so my pace per month might slow down while I digest them.

Goals for September

September is going to be a busy month! We’re headed to Knoxville here shortly and then I’m off to Whistler for the 2017 Automattic Grand Meetup. We’re starting to ramp up events for Drink for Pink as well. I’m going to set four goals knowing it will likely be tough to hit them all.

Read three books. Just keeping up with my normal cadence here. I’ll likely read two physical ones and one audiobook.

Write four blog posts and one freelance post. Again, nothing crazy here. Just keeping up with my normal Thursday cadence here for articles and adding in one freelance post.

Write two blog posts for Drink for Pink. One post will detail the research we supported through our 2016 fundraising efforts.

Workout 24 days in September. I track all of my workouts over on this blog. Normally, when I’m in town for the entire month, I don’t set workout goals because I just head to the gym six times a week based on habit. With the amount of traveling this month, it’s going to be a bit tougher to get some exercise in most of the month. I’m setting a public goal to hold me accountable.

Featured image is photo of Ao Nang bay near Krabi, Thailand from our trip in January.